Confused Expressions #7: Begging the Question

Very few things throw me more in a conversation than when someone says, “And of course that begs the question …”

In philosophy, “begging the question” is a technical term that means you’ve made the fallacy of assuming the truth of your conclusion in your premises: i.e., of arguing from point A to point A.

When they use that expression in conversation, though, most people aren’t accusing you of having fallen off the logic truck; they mean that you’ve raised an important question.

Why does the misappropriate use of that expression throw me? Because the term “begging” has a negative connotation. This works well in philosophy, where “begging the question” is a bad thing (or, to use the technical term for bad things in philosophy, a fallacy). But there’s nothing negative about a thought that raises a question, and such a thought deserves better treatment!

Share this post:

Related

Karl El-Koura was born in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and currently lives with his beautiful editor-wife in Canada’s capital city. More than sixty of his short stories and articles have been published in magazines since 1998, and in 2012 he independently published his debut novel Father John VS the Zombies.

Featured Book

The One they’ve been seeking is the One they’ve been hiding from…

This is the Biblical narrative in a way you’ve never encountered it before—the story of Enoch, an angel who is swept up in the war against God. He fights for Lucifer, and falls with him when the rebels are overthrown.

Although Enoch finds renewed purpose in Lucifer’s mission—to uncover and thwart God’s plan for the strange new creatures of flesh and blood—he is haunted by the memory of Heaven, tormented by jealousy of these creatures of matter, and terrified by the thought that God’s plan for their redemption will end with his own annihilation.